Phnom Penh (Cambodia), Jan 7 (AP) Cambodia's government announced Wednesday that it has arrested and extradited to China a prominent tycoon who allegedly led a huge online scam operation and was wanted by US authorities on related criminal charges.

A press release from Cambodia's Interior Ministry said Chen Zhi and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited Tuesday following months of investigation and at the request of Chinese authorities.

Chen, a Chinese native with dual nationality, had his Cambodian citizenship revoked in December, it said.

Chen, chairman of Cambodia's Prince Holding Group, was accused in October by the US Treasury Department and the UK Foreign Office of heading a transnational criminal network that defrauded victims worldwide and exploited trafficked workers.

Scam centres have proliferated across Southeast Asia, swindling money from victims by convincing them to join bogus investment schemes. According to estimates from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, scam victims worldwide lost between USD 18 billion and USD 37 billion in 2023.

Chen was sanctioned by the US and UK ======================== The US and UK have imposed sanctions against Chen, 38, and his companies, which were primarily involved in real estate development and financial services.

US authorities seized an estimated USD 14 billion in bitcoin linked to Chen or his operations, and charged him with wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies. He was accused of sanctioning violence against workers, authorising bribes to foreign officials and using his other businesses, such as online gambling and cryptocurrency mining, to launder illicit profits.

Prosecutors in the US charged that his organisation scammed 250 Americans out of millions of dollars, with one losing USD 4,00,000 alone in cryptocurrency. In 2024, Americans lost at least USD 10 billion to Southeast Asia-based scams, according to the US Treasury Department.

There was no immediate comment on the extraditions from the federal prosecutors' office in Brooklyn where Chen had been indicted. Chen and the Prince Group had denied any wrongdoing.

Chinese authorities also had no immediate comment on the extradition of Chen and the two other individuals named by Cambodia's Interior Ministry as Xu Ji Liang and Shao Ji Hui.

Jacob Daniel Sims, a transnational crime expert and visiting fellow at Harvard University's Asia Centre, said that the Cambodian government had faced so much sustained international pressure that inaction was no longer an option.

“Handing Chen Zhi to China was the path of least resistance. It defuses Western scrutiny while aligning with Beijing's likely preference to keep a politically sensitive case out of US and UK courts,” Sims said.

Chen had served as an advisor to Prime Minister Hun Manet and his father, former Prime Minister Hun Sen, and was honoured with a noble title known as “neak oknha.” In addition to the bitcoin seized by the US government, British authorities froze Chen's British businesses and assets, including a 12 million euro-mansion and a 100 million-euro office building in London. Other assets were later seized in Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Online scams have flourished in Southeast Asia ============================= Cybercrime has flourished in Southeast Asia where law enforcement is weak, particularly in Cambodia and Myanmar, with casinos often serving as hubs for criminal activity. Trafficked foreign nationals were employed to run “romance” and cryptocurrency scams, often recruited with false job offers and then forced to work in conditions of near-slavery. Chen's US indictment alleged that Prince Holding Group built at least 10 compounds in Cambodia.

The operations became an embarrassment to the Chinese government, especially when they targeted Chinese citizens. Beijing in mid-2023 pressured Myanmar to crack down on the crimes, and some kingpins were extradited from there to be tried in China. Several received death sentences.

A 2023 report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights estimated that at least 1,20,000 people across Myanmar and 1,00,000 people in Cambodia may have been held in situations where they were forced to work on online scams. Experts believe that such operations are continuing. (AP) NPK NPK